Something remarkable is unfolding across America.
The once-unquestioned reverence for expert opinion — from polished T.V. pundits to Ivy League data wizards — is crumbling.
Despite all the doomsaying, this collapse might just be the healthiest thing to have happened in public life for generations on end.
What, exactly, is taking place? A lot of things.
Americans’ trust in scientists has declined since April 2020, dropping from 87% to 73% by Fall 2023, particularly among Republicans.
Trust in public K-12 education is at record lows, according to a recent Gallup survey, with 73% dissatisfied with the quality of public education, while a 2024 Pew survey found that 82% of teachers believed the quality of education had declined over the past five years.According to an EdWeek Research Center State of Teaching Survey, seven out of 10 teachers feel most Americans hold a negative view of their profession.
It goes without saying that the news media ranks near the bottom of trusted institutions, just above Congress, with survey after survey reflecting that. The distrust is fueled by politicized reporting and the rise of alternate media sources and social media.
Trust in elections is strained, with only 37% of Americans in 2024 saying they have 'a lot' of trust in election result at the national level. Confidence is higher in local elections, with 74% trusting vote accuracy in their communities.
Trust in organized religion has fallen from 65% in the early 1970s to 32%, and trust in the medical system has dropped from 80% to 36%, according to a Gallup poll cited on Pew Research's site. This reflects a broader, decades-long decline in institutional trust across the U.S.
Political polarization significantly contributes to mistrust, with Pew Research finding 28% of Americans holding unfavorable views of both major parties in 2024, up from 7% two decades ago. Partisan divides are evident in differing trust levels for institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with 78% approval among Democrats versus 33% among Republicans, another Pew poll found.
In June 2024, a survey by the Partnership for Public Service found only 19% of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing most or all the time, down from 2022 and across every demographic group. In the same month, Pew Research Center reported that just 2% of Americans trusted the government “just about always,” with 21% saying “most of the time.” Among Republicans, that figure fell to a mere 11%.
This is no blip — it’s a sea change.
This shift has shaken the bedrock of traditional expertise, especially in politics. For decades, so-called “experts” held court unchallenged, their models and predictions taken as gospel. The 2024 presidential election demolished that illusion once and for all.
Remember Allan J. Lichtman’s 13 Keys to the White House?
In September, USA Today gave his model the royal treatment. The American University history professor confidently projected Kamala Harris defeating Donald Trump. Lichtman’s system claimed historical reliability — yet it crumbled under the reality of Trump’s resurgence.
Nate Silver, the once-revered polling guru, gave Harris a 50% chance of winning, only to watch Trump sweep crucial swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, Lichtman’s keys buckled under the weight of an electorate increasingly unmoved by legacy media narratives. It was also arguable that Lichtman failed to read his own keys.
Indeed, the legacy media found itself in really hot water. Gallup reported that in October, American trust in media reached a historic low. Republican confidence was “almost nonexistent,” while Democrats’ trust teetered near record lows.
Only 41% of Americans said they trusted the news media as a source of political information, down sharply in recent years. More tellingly, a majority trusted businesses over journalists, revealing that even salesmen were more highly regarded than “reliable sources.”
What caused this? A public awakening to the fact that most mainstream narratives — post-2024, accurately called “legacy agendas” — are designed to mold opinions, not reveal truths.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris presided over developments that eroded confidence in one legacy agenda after the next. Inflation soared to 9.1% in June 2022, easing down to 3.7% by September 2023. Still, Americans felt the pinch in gas stations and grocery aisles; life continued growing more expensive, just not as quickly. Though unemployment dropped to 3.8% in August 2023, real wage growth lagged. In a 2023 Gallup poll, roughly 1/3 of Americans said they were better off financially than a year prior.
Energy prices told a similar story. After surging in 2022, they never fully stabilized. According to the Energy Information Administration, energy cost volatility directly saps consumer confidence.
During 2023, an Associated Press poll found that 60% of U.S. adults believed the federal government spent “too much” overall.
By 2024, Americans were tired of inflationary handouts and lofty promises. They wanted steady paychecks, affordable goods and energy, and freedom from bureaucratic micromanagement, for starters.
This is where my Five-Point Forecast came in. While other forecasters obsessed over foreign policy dramas or personality quirks, my model focused on economic sentiment and inflation, employment and economic growth, energy prices and consumer confidence, perceptions of government response, and the role of accurate polling. It predicted not only that Donald Trump would defeat Harris but also correctly forecast every swing state outcome.
These weren’t guesses. They were rooted in economic fundamentals that have guided American votes for generations. As I explain in Why Trump Won, voters aren’t swayed by academic theories or viral soundbites — they vote their wallets.
In last year’s election, and its labyrinthine aftermath, voters demonstrated they no longer trust distant experts or credentialed elites to interpret reality for them. Uncle Sam is seen as the citadel of this self-appointed “smart set.” Therefore, he’s the foremost recipient of public anger at the specialist class — and it’s not just old fogies watching cable news who’re infuriated. Lots of adult teens, folks in their 20s, and thirty-somethings are incensed as well. The Harvard Youth Poll in April 2025 reinforced this: only 19% of young Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing most or all the time.
This broad skepticism, including toward Congress and the Supreme Court, isn’t a harbinger of collapse. Rather, it signals a hunger for authenticity and independence.
Of course, the digital landscape is messy. It teems with charlatans, tin-foil hatters, and self-destructive fame-seekers, among other misfits. Just look at the alleged “MAGA” influencers who concoct and perpetuate conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein, knowing full well how their efforts stymie Trump’s administration. Yet, even in that degenerate chaos lies opportunity. Individuals can now sift, question, and engage in ways impossible under the old top-down information monopoly.
The establishment has discredited itself through unearned arrogance and spectacular, repeated failure. In the age of Trump’s revival, this collapse has sparked a new dawn of direct engagement and self-determination. Americans no longer need to be spoon-fed a manufactured consensus which, far from reflecting reality, is meant to shoulder the dead weight of legacy agendas — at the expense of pursuing knowledge for its own sake.
There will always be pitfalls: echo chambers, shameless grifters, and dangerous misinformation. The nastiness hardly ends there. But a society skeptical of centralized expertise is one better prepared to think critically and defend its interests.
As the 2024 race proved, a data-driven, grounded approach beat the credentialed guesswork paraded on television. The old guard was too busy telling stories to notice that Americans had tuned out. The rise of alternative voices, especially digital ones, marks a rebirth of civic self-confidence. It’s a reawakening that deserves celebration, not scorn.
In this new era, people are rediscovering the power of thinking for themselves. That, above all, is the real victory.
Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto hosts and produces News Sight, speaking the data-driven truth about economic and political issues that impact you. During the 2024 presidential election, he created the Five-Point Forecast, which correctly predicted Trump's national victory and the outcome in all swing states. The author of numerous nonfiction books, Cotto holds a doctorate in business administration and is a Lean Six Sigma Certified Black Belt. During 2014, HLM King Kigeli V of Rwanda bestowed a hereditary knighthood upon him. It was followed by a barony the next year.